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Edwin  Booth 


BY 


Laurence  HuTTON 


LIBRARY  ^ 

JNIV         TY  OF      J 


^ 


presented  to  the 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  •  SAN  DIEGO 

by 

FRIENDS  OF  THE  LIBRARY 

MR.    JOHN  C.    ROSE 

donor 


//U   ,^^^.^^A'Ji^/..^(^  y^^^-^ . 


EDWIN    BOOTH 


LAURENCE  BUTTON 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

189S 


Harper's  "Black  and  White"  Series. 

Illustrated,     samo,  Cloth,  50  cents  each. 


Edwin    Booth.      By    Laurence 

Hiitton. 
Phillips    Brooks.       By    Rev. 

Arthur  Brooks,  D.D. 
Thb  Unexpected    Guests.     A 

Farce.       By     William     Deaii 

HoweEs. 
The  Decision  of  the  Court. 

A  Comedy.     By  Brander  Mat- 
thews. 
George  William  Curtis.     Bv 

John  White  Clmdwick. 
Slavery  AND  the  SlaveTradk 

IN    Africa.      By   Henry    M. 

Stanley. 
The     Rivals.       By     Francois 

Coppee. 
The    Japanese    Bride.       By 

Naomi  Tamura. 
Whittier:  Notes  of  his  Life 

AND  OF  HIS  Friendships.    By 

Annie  Fields. 


Giles    Corey,   Yeoman.      By 
Mary  E.  Wilkius. 

Coffee    and    Repartee.     By 
John  Kcndrick  Bangs. 

James  Russell  Lowell.     An 

Address.    By  George  William 

Curtis. 
Seen  from  the  Saddle.     By 

Isa  Carrington  Cabell. 
A    Family    Canoe   Trip.     By 

Florence  Watters  Snedeker. 

A  Little  Swiss  Sojourn.     By 

William  Dean  Howells. 
A    Letter    of   Introduction. 

A   I'arce.     By  William  Dean 

Howells. 
In    the   Vestibule    Limited, 

By  Brander  Matthews. 
The  Albany  Depot.    A  Farce. 

By  William  Dean  Howells. 


Published  by  HARPER  &   BROTHERS,  New  York. 

For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  -will  be  sent  by  the  publishers, 
■tiostage  prepaid,  on  receipt  of  price. 


Copyright,  1893,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 


All  rii;hts  reservt 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


EDWIN  BOOTH.    FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH 

TAKEX  IX  1890 Frontispiece 

MR.  BOOTH'S  MOTHER Facing  page  10 

EDWIN     BOOTH.         FROM     A     PHOTOGRAPH 

TAKEN  IN  ST.  LOUIS  IN  1856.      ...  "  18 

MR.   AND  MRS.  BOOTH  AND  DAUGHTER  .      .  "  28 

ON   THE   YACHT    "  ONEIDA  " "  36 


MR.     BOOTH     IN      HIS      ROOM      AT      "  THE 

PL.iYERS" "  4i 

MR.  BARRETT'S  LIBRARY  AT    COHASSET     .  "  54 


EDWIN  BOOTH 


Wm 


^^M.^  YOUNG  man,  the  only  son  of 
^^//'^'XM  ^^^  mother  and  she  a  widow, 
^^'^  sat  alone  with  his  dead  one 
^/  awful  night  a  good  many  years 
ago,  w^hen  there  entered  the 
room  a  dear  friend  of  them  both.  The  new- 
comer, placing  his  warm  hand  upon  the  cold 
hands  of  her  who  was  gone,  laid  his  wet 
cheek  against  the  wetter  cheek  of  him  who 
was  left,  and  said  simply,  "My  poor  boy, 
my  poor  boy!"  There  were  volumes  of  sym- 
pathy and  affection  in  the  words  and  in  the 
action,  and  even  a  little  comfort.  They  both 
knew  that  it  was  merely  the  natural,  unaf- 
fected expression  of  a  very  warm  feeling  of 
pity  for  the  mourner,  and  of  genuine,  almost 
filial,  love  for  her  whom  they  thus  mourned 
together.    The  man  of  tender  heart  and  more 


than  kindl}^  nature  was  Edwin  Booth  ;  "the 
poor  boy  "  is  the  man  who  pens  these  lines. 

The  friendship  between  them,  of  many 
years'  standing,  cemented  if  possible  more 
strongly  by  what  is  here  for  the  first  time 
narrated,  was  never  broken  until  Mr.  Booth 
himself  laid  down  the  burden  of  his  life, 
and  went  —  by  no  means  unprepared  —  to 
solve  the  great  problem  of  the  future  ;  car- 
rying with  him,  perhaps,  a  direct  message  to 
the  mother  from  the  son. 

Oidy  those  who  have  known  Edwin  Booth 
in  trouble  and  in  sorrow  have  known  Edwin 
Booth  at  all ;  and  even  his  few  intimate 
friends,  and  the  members  of  his  own  im- 
mediate family,  have  not  known  of  half  the 
good  he  has  done.  He  never  made  any  pub- 
lic expression  of  his  personal  feeling.  He 
gave  lavishly  with  both  hands,  concealing 
from  the  left  hand  the  gifts  of  the  right ; 
and,  if  possible,  keeping  even  the  right  hand 
itself  ignorant  of  its  own  well-doing.  I  have 
known  him  to  pay  all  the  funeral  expenses, 
and  to  attend  the  funeral,  of  a  woman  he 


had  never  seen,  simply  because  her  daugh- 
ter was  a  member  of  his  company,  and  witli- 
out  means  or  a  friend.  I  have  seen  him  re- 
ceive in  his  own  home,  and  on  a  footing  of 
perfect  social  equality,  the  black  servant 
who  had  called  to  pay  her  respects  to  him, 
and  deny  himself,  during  her  visit,  to  men 
and  women  of  the  highest  social  distinction, 
who  were  permitted  only  to  leave  their  cards 
at  his  door.  I  have  discovered  accidentally, 
and  from  outside  sources,  of  his  unbounded 
generosity  to  superannuated  actors, who  had 
no  claim  upon  him  whatever,  except  that 
they  were  old  and  poor.  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  a  certain  worn-out  comedian  had  a 
fixed  income  for  life,  and  that  a  certain  bro- 
ken-down tragedian's  mortgage  had  been 
paid,  without  the  expression  of  the  slightest 
hint  that  he  himself  had  taken  up  the  mort- 
gage or  had  bought  the  annuity.  I  have 
seen  him  blush  like  a  girl  at  the  receipt  of 
a  letter  of  thanks,  and  run  away  like  a  cow- 
ard from  the  gratitude  of  those  he  had 
helped. 


A  storj'-  Avhicli  Lawrence  Barrett  used  to 
tell  upon  himself  may  not  be  out  of  place 
here,  as  illustrating  what  I  have  tried  to  say. 
The  wreck  of  a  brilliant  actor  came  to  Mr. 
Barrett  once  at  the  stage  entrance  of  a  West- 
ern theatre  and  asked  for  the  loan  of  half  a 
dollar.  His  miserable  condition  was  entirely 
his  own  fault.  He  had  lost  his  self-respect, 
if  he  had  ever  possessed  any,  and  he  was 
utterly  ruined  by  liquor  and  by  the  results 
of  a  bad  life.  Mr.  Barrett,  who  had  by  hard 
work,  by  untiring  industr}'-,  by  close  study, 
and  by  uniform  good  conduct  raised  himself 
from  nothing,  had  but  little  patience  with 
those  who  had  fallen  from  high  estates  down 
to  nothing  because  of  their  lack  of  the  qual- 
ities which  he  himself  possessed,  and  he  re- 
fused the  beggar  money  to  buy  the  drink  he 
craved.  ' '  If  Mr.  Barrett  could  not  and  would 
not  help  him  to  a  pittance,  would  Mr.  Bar- 
rett cash  the  check  in  his  ragged  pocket, 
received  that  day,  and  useless  to  him  where 
he  was  not  known  ?"  The  check  was  pro- 
duced, and  bore  the  signature  of  Edwin 


Booth.  "And  so,"  said  Mr.  Barrett  one 
evening  in  Mr.  Booth's  presence,  and  to  Mr. 
Booth's  great  distress,  "  to  the  wretched 
creature  to  whom  I  had  refused  fifty  cents 
Edwin  had  given  fifty  dollars!" 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  this  incident 
that  Mr.  Barrett  was  not  himself  a  man  of 
sincere  soul  and  of  large  bounty.  Few 
members  of  an  ever-generous  profession  have 
been  more  ready  and  more  willing  to  help 
those  who  could  not  help  themselves.  The 
long  association  existing  between  the  two 
men  was  as  intimate  in  a  personal  as  it  was 
in  a  business  way.  A  few  years  Mr.  Booth's 
junior  upon  the  stage  of  the  world,  Mr.  Bar- 
rett w^as  his  excellent  support  at  the  very 
outset  of  Mr.  Booth's  career  as  a  star  per- 
former, and  for  many  seasons,  and  in  many 
parts  of  the  countr}'-,  have  they  played  to- 
gether, under  all  conditions,  and  in  every 
variety  of  tragedy  and  comedy,  going  home 
together  many  hundreds  of  nights  to  a  sim- 
ple supper  of  bread  and  milk  in  some  pro- 
vincial hotel,  or  to  an  equally  frugal  repast 


of  tea  and  toast  in  the  grill-room  of  The 
Players,  in  New  York.  Mr.  Barrett's  affec- 
tionate care  of  his  companion  was  touching 
and  unceasing,  not  only  during  their  pro- 
fessional engagements,  but  during  the  bright 
holiday  seasons  spent  in  Mr.  Barrett's  sum- 
mer house  at  Cohasset,  on  the  Massachusetts 
coast,  where  they  talked  together  for  long 
hours  of  old  times,  and  laid  the  plans  for  a 
long  future  together,  upon  the  stage  and  off. 
Their  reminiscences  then  related,  grave  and 
gay,  could  they  have  been  preserved  by  the 
fortunate  listeners,  would  have  made  a  book 
of  theatrical  history  and  anecdote  unrivalled 
in  the  whole  literature  of  the  drama.  Mr. 
Barrett's  death,  for  which  Mr.  Booth  was  en- 
tirely unprepared,  was  a  terrible  shock  to 
the  survivor,  and  a  blow  from  which  he 
never  fully  recovered.  The  gentle  spirit  of 
"The  Man  of  Airlie"  seemed  to  haunt,  in 
the  most  pleasant  way,  his  old  apartments, 
adjoining  those  of  Mr.  Booth,  at  The  Play- 
ers ;  and  more  than  once,  after  Mr.  Barrett 
had  passed  away,  when  some  heavy  truck 


ill  the  street  below  had  jarred  the  building, 
and  caused  the  strings  of  the  automatic  harp 
upon  his  closed  door  "to  play  sweet  music," 
Mr.  Bootli  has  turned  his  sad  face  towards 
it,  and  has  said,  witli  a  half  smile,  "There 
comes  poor  Lawrence  now!" 

Mr.  Booth's  great  gift  of  a  Club  to  tlie 
members  of  his  profession,  and  to  those  who 
are  in  S3^mpathy  with  it,  was  the  last  crown- 
ing act  of  his  life,  and  The  Players,  as  was 
his  own  wish,  is  his  most  enduring  monu- 
ment. He  had  long  cherished  the  plan  of 
founding  a  home  for  the  more  deserving  of 
his  fellow-workers,  and  the  idea  culminated, 
after  much  discussion,  on  the  deck  of  the 
steam-yacht  Oneida,  sailing  along  the  coast 
of  Maine,  in  the  summer  of  1887,  when  The 
Players  was  conceived.  The  history  of  the 
association  is  part  of  the  history  of  the  great 
city  in  whicli  it  stands,  and  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  drama  in  America,  and  therefore 
it  need  not  be  repeated  here.  Mr.  Booth 
presented  the  building  and  its  contents,  in- 
cluding his  own  rich  dramatic  library  and 


Lis  own  collection  of  rare  dramatic  portraits, 
to  its  members  on  the  niglit  of  December  31, 
1888,  and  thereafter  it  was  his  only  home. 
He  showed  the  greatest  interest  in  ever}-- 
thing  concerning  it.  When  he  was  in  town 
he  never  missed  a  business  meeting  of  its 
governing  body,  of  which  he  was  president. 
He  scanned  carefully  the  list  of  candidates 
for  membership,  giving  his  vote  always  for 
the  younger  men  upon  the  stage,  who  he 
felt  would  be  a  help  to  the  organization,  and 
gainers  themselves  by  its  quiet,  healthful  in- 
fluence ;  and  to  the  last  The  Players  and 
their  welfare  were  ever  uppermost  in  his 
mind.  It  is  not  often  that  a  man  is  wise 
enough  and  thoughtful  enough  to  enjoy  the 
results  of  his  own  beneficence.  This  was 
Mr.  Booth's  happy  and  well -merited  lot. 
Upon  Founder's  Night,  the  anniversary  of 
the  club's  inauguration,  the  foremost  men  in 
every  walk  of  life  gathered  within  its  walls 
to  do  him  honor.  He  was  loved  and  re- 
spected by  every  man  whose  name  w^as  upon 
its  rolls.     "When  he  entered  a  room  with  a 


pleasant  word  of  greeting  to  each  person 
present,  there  was  a  universal  stir  and  mur- 
mur of  response.  Many  of  the  members 
rose  unostentatiously,  and  remained  stand- 
ing until  he  w^as  seated,  and  even  the  few — 
very  few — of  the  younger  men  who  habitu- 
ally wore  their  hats  in  the  building,  instinc- 
tively uncovered  at  his  approach.  The  pass- 
ing of  the  "  loving-cup" — once  the  property 
of  the  elder  Booth — upon  Founder's  Night, 
and  on  other  rare  and  festive  occasions,  was 
a  revival,  or  survival,  of  an  old  custom, 
beautiful  in  its  observance,  and  very  dear  to 
Mr.  Booth's  own  heart.  After  wetting  his 
lips  with  its  contents,  he  gave  it  with  a  bow 
to  his  nearest  neighbor,  and  as  it  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  each  man  in  his  turn 
rose  in  his  place,  no  matter  where  he  was 
or  what  his  present  occupation,  and  stand- 
ing, he  bowed  and  drank  to  "The Founder." 
Alas  !  and  alas  !  we  can  only  drink  to  his 
memory  now. 

Concerning  Edwin  Booth  in  his  domestic 
relations — as  sou,  as  husband,  as  brother,  as 


10 


father — this  is  not  the  time  nor  the  jDlace  to 
speak.  His  sorrowing  daughter,  with  whom 
all  the  world  grieves  to-da}^,  knows  well 
how  tender  and  how  perfect  was  his  love  for 
her,  for  her  mother,  and  for  her  children. 
His  devotion  to  the  memory  of  his  father  he 
has  himself  put  on  record  in  enduring  form, 
and  his  filial  affection  for  the  mother  whom 
he  buried  only  a  few  years  ago  was  as  sacred 
and  intense  as  such  affection  can  ever  be. 
He  was  not  a  perfect  man.  He  was  only 
human,  and  very  human  at  that.  But  he 
was  a  credit  to  humanity,  an  honor  to  his 
country,  and  the  foremost  figure  in  the  whole 
history  of  the  American  stage. 

Edwin  Booth  was  born  on  the  13th  of  Xo- 
vember,  1833, upon  his  father's  farm,  in  Har- 
ford County,  Maryland,  a  quiet,  picturesque 
old  place,  full  of  mellow  sunshine,  but  shut 
out  from  the  world  by  miles  of  unbroken 
and  primeval  w^oodland.  He  was  called  Ed- 
win Thomas  Booth,  after  two  of  his  father's 
most  intimate  associates,  Edwin  Forrest  and 
Thomas  Flynn. 


MK.    BOOTH'S   MOTHER. 
(From  an  old  painting.) 


]\[rs.  Asia  Bootli  Clarke,  who  has  carried 
the  life  of  her  brother  dowu  to  the  date  of 
his  second  visit  to  England,  in  1880,  tells  us 
how  on  the  night  of  that  18th  of  November 
the  negroes  of  the  neighborhood  were  so 
impressed  by  the  brilliancy  of  a  meteoric 
shower  that  they  fell  to  making  prophecies 
concerning  the  brilliant  future  of  the  new- 
comer, who  was  to  be  a  see-er  of  ghosts  all 
his  days,  and  to  be  guided  by  a  lucky  star. 
One  recalls  this  scene  with  curious  interest — 
the  dense  woods,  the  ohl  whitewashed  cabin, 
still  and  spectral  in  the  darkness,  and  those 
groups  of  awe-struck  negroes,  busy  with  por- 
tents for  the  new-born  child's  after-life. 

To  the  elder  Booth,  as  his  daughter  has 
shown  us,  this  old  farm,  buried  as  it  was  in 
the  heart  of  the  Maryhmd  forest,  had  been, 
since  its  purchase  in  1823,  both  a  refuge 
and  a  pleasure.  Though  lying  but  twenty- 
five  miles  from  Baltimore,  it  was  almost  in- 
accessible. The  mounted  post-boy  passed  by 
but  once  a  week,  tossing  the  mail-bags  over 
the  fence.     Few  travellers  went  that  way. 


12 


From  the  gate  that  opened  on  the  rough  and 
stony  higliroad  a  crooked  horse -path  led 
through  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  woodland  to 
the  primitive  cottage,  which  once,  to  the 
great  wonder  of  his  neighbors,  Mr.  Booth 
had  moved  from  a  distant  site  to  where, 
under  massive  trees,  a  spring  of  cool  water 
bubbled  all  day.  About  this  spring  he  had 
built  granite  ledges  and  steps,  and,  to  the  de- 
light of  his  children,  a  great  green  bull-frog 
w^as  encouraged  to  dwell  in  peace  and  com- 
fort within  its  depths.  oSTear  the  door  of  the 
cabin  j\[r.  Booth  had  planted  a  cheny-tree, 
which,  as  it  grew  and  blossomed,  lending 
its  branches  to  the  children  in  their  romps, 
became,  as  years  went  by,  more  and  more 
closely  identified  wuth  their  family  traditions. 
Within-doors  all  was  quaint,  sweet,  and 
primitive.  There  the  hum  of  the  spinning- 
wheel  was  a  constant  sound,  it  being  "the 
farmer's  pride  that  all  his  blankets  and  wool- 
len goods  came  from  the  backs  of  his  own 
sheep,  and  were  spun  at  home."  Brass  fen- 
ders, old-fashioned   mirrors,  and   polished 


13 


pewter  plates  made  up  the  details  of  its  sim- 
ple furnishings,  and  Shelley,  Coleridge,  Tas- 
so,  Racine,  and  Alighieri  looked  out  from 
among  the  few  books  of  the  well-chosen  li- 
brary. 

The  earliest  of  Edwin  Booth's  recollec- 
tions, however,  w^ere  not  of  the  cheer  and 
charm  of  this  quiet  sunny  life,  but  of  his  be- 
ing lifted  late  at  night  over  a  crooked  snake- 
fence,  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  as  he  placed  him 
upon  the  otlier  side  of  it,  exclaiming,  "Your 
foot  is  on  your  native  heath!"  As  the  boy 
stood  there  in  the  dense  darkness  of  over- 
hanging trees  he  could  hear  the  dull  sound 
made  by  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  as  they  gal- 
loped away  into  the  night,  and  the  impres- 
sion made  upon  him  he  never  afterwards 
forgot. 

Edwin  and  his  father  had  travelled  all  day, 
reaching  home  at  a  late  hour,  for  even  at  this 
early  age,  the  mother's  health  being  delicate, 
It  was  to  this  tender  and  dutiful  child, 
grave  beyond  his  years,  that  the  guardian- 
ship of  his  father  had  been  given.     And  so 


14 


was  inaugurated  for  Edwin  Booth  those  long 
■wanderings  by  night  and  day,  and  that  close 
and  intimate  companionship  with  that  strange 
wild  genius,  which  were  to  lend  at  once  the 
gloom  and  radiance  to  his  life. 

Edwin  Booth's  education  began  under  a 
Miss  Susan  Hyde,  who  kept  a  school  for 
boys  and  girls  m  the  neighborhood  of  "Old 
Town."  By  her  he  was  thoroughly  ground- 
ed in  all  those  rudiments  which  go  to  form 
the  basis  of  a  sound  mental  training.  ]\Iiss 
Hyde,  who  afterwards  became  the  secretary 
of  the  Peabody  Institute  in  Baltimore,  never 
ceased  to  follow  with  affectionate  interest 
the  career  of  lier  brilliant  pupil,  and  between 
the  two  the  old  friendship  was  never  broken. 

He  was  next  placed  by  his  father  under  the 
care  of  an  old  West-Indian  officer,  a  French- 
man. Louis  Dugas,  who  had  about  him  a  few 
young  persons  in  their  teens.  He  went  also 
at  one  time  to  some  university,  the  name  of 
which  Mrs.  Clarke  does  not  mention.  He 
studied  at  intervals  afterwards  with  a  ]Mr. 
Kearney,  a  pedagogue,  who  wrote  his  own 


15 


school-books,  and  encouraged  dramatic  per- 
formances among  liis  pupils.  It  was  in  Mr. 
Kearney's  crowded  establishment  that  the 
elder  Booth,  entering  once  unobserved,  saw 
Edwin  on  a  platform,  in  black  jacket  and 
white  trousers,  playing  with  J.  S.  Clarke, 
who  w\as  similarly  attired,  the  quarrel  scene 
between  Brutus  and  Cassius.  These  sudden 
and  quiet  appearances  of  his  father  were  by 
no  means  infrequent  in  Edwin  Booth's  life, 
and  the  boy  was  able  to  recall  many  of  them, 
although  in  all  instances  it  was  one  of  the 
father's  peculiarities  to  ignore  them  and  to 
have  them  ignored. 

A  clever  self-taught  negro  taught  Edwin 
the  banjo,  and  under  Signor  Picioli  he  be- 
came a  proficient  on  the  violin.  But  of  other 
instruction  he  knew  none,  except  the  world 
as  it  schooled  him,  experience  as  it  taught 
him,  or  as  the  brilliancy  and  charm  of  his 
father's  daily  conversation  helped  tfe  guide 
and  form  his  tastes. 

As  to  his  personal  appearance  in  those 
days,  we  have  only  this  testimony  from  Mr. 


16 


John  H.  Jewett:  "He  was  a  comely  lad,  as  I 
remember  liim,  dressed  in  a  Spanish  cloak 
(among  the  first  to  display  that  style),  giving 
promise  of  the  man  he  has  turned  out  to  be." 

Mr.  Edwin  Booth,  according  to  Mrs.  Clarke, 
made  his  first  appearance  on  any  stage  on  the 
night  of  September  10,  1849,  and  at  the  Bos- 
ton jNIuseum.  He  played  on  that  occasion 
Tressel.  The  story  of  his  undertaking  it  is 
an  old  one,  but  one  that  is  much  too  charac- 
teristic of  both  father  and  son  to  be  omitted 
here.  Mr.  Tlioman,  prompter  and  actor,  an- 
noyed at  some  detail,  shouted  to  Edwin, 
standing  near  him,  "  This  is  too  much  work 
for  one  man  ;  you  ought  to  play  Tressel," 
which,  after  a  little  hesitation,  the  lad  was 
persuaded  to  do.  "On  this  eventful  night 
the  elder  Booth,  dressed  for  Richard  III., 
was  seated  with  his  feet  upon  the  table  in 
bis  dressing-room.  Calling  his  son  before 
him,  like  a  severe  pedagogue  or  inquisitor, 
he  interrogated  him  in  that  hard  laconic 
style  he  could  at  limes  assume. 

"  '  Who  was  Tressel?' 


IT 


"  'A  messenger  from  the  field  of  Tewkes- 
bury.' 

"  '  "What  was  his  mission?' 

"  'To  bear  the  news  of  the  defeat  of  the 
King's  party?' 

"  '  How  did  he  make  his  journey?' 

"  '  On  horseback.' 

"  'Where  are  your  spurs?' 

"Edwin  glanced  quickly  down,  and  said 
he  had  not  thought  of  them, 

"  'Here,  take  mine.' 

"Edwin  unbuckled  his  father's  spurs,  and 
fastened  them  on  his  own  boots.  His  part 
being  ended  on  the  stage,  he  found  his  father 
still  sitting  in  the  dressing-room,  apparently 
engrossed  in  thought. 

"  'Have  you  done  well?"  he  asked. 

"  'I  think  so,'  replied  Edwin. 

"  '  Give  me  my  spurs,'  rejoined  his  father, 
and  obediently  young  Tressel  replaced  the 
spurs  upon  Gloucester's  feet." 

The  very  rare  bill  of  this  performance, 
perhaps  the  only  copy  in  existence,  for  no 
one   but  the  debutant  would  be  likely  to 


18 


preserve  it,  was  given,  among  so  many  other 
treasures,  by  Mr.  Booth  to  The  Players,  and 
it  hangs  in  the  dining-room  there,  one  of 
the  most  cherished  possessions  of  its  mem- 
bers. 

In  his  beautiful  and  affectionate  tribute  to 
his  father,  published  in  the  third  volume  of 
Actors  and  Actresses,  Edwin  wrote  in  1885: 
"After  my  debut  in  the  very  small  part  of 
Tressel,  he  '  coddled '  me,  gave  me  gruel  (his 
usual  meal  at  night  when  acting),  and  made 
me  don  his  worsted  nightcap,  which,  when 
his  work  was  ended,  he  always  wore  as  a  pro- 
tection for  his  heated  head,  to  prevent  me 
from  taking  cold  after  my  labors,  which  were 
doubtless  very  exhausting  on  that  occasion, 
being  confined  to  one  brief  scene  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  play!  At  that  time  there  seemed 
to  be  a  touch  of  irony  in  this  over-care  of 
me;  but  now,  recalling  the  many  acts  of  his 
large  sympathy,  it  appears  in  its  true  charac- 
ter of  genuine  solicitude  for  the  heedless  boy 
who  had  drifted  into  that  troublous  sea, 
where,  without  talent,  he  would  either  sink, 


'^^^^l,. 


EDWIN   BOOTH. 
(From  a  photograph  taken  m  St.  Louis  iu  1856.) 


19 


or,  buoyed  perhaps  by  vanity  alone,  merely 
flounder  in  its  uncertain  waves. 

"To  comprehend  the  peculiar  tempera- 
ment with  which  my  father  charmed,  roused, 
and  subdued  the  keenest  and  tlie  coarsest  in- 
tellects of  his  generation,  one  should  be  able 
to  understand  that  great  enigma  to  the  wisest 
—'Hamlet.' 

"To  my  dull  thinking,  Hamlet  typifies 
uneven  or  unbalanced  genius.  But  who  can 
tell  us  what  genius  of  any  sort  whatever 
means?  The  possessor,  or  rather  the  pos- 
sessed, if  he  is,  as  in  Hamlet's  case,  more  fre- 
quently its  slave  than  its  master,  being  irre- 
sistibly and  often  unconsciously  swayed  by 
its  capriciousness.  Great  minds  to  madness 
closely  are  allied,  Hamlet's  mind,  at  the  very 
edge  of  frenzy,  seeks  its  relief  in  ribaldry. 
For  a  like  reason  w^ould  my  father  open,  so 
to  speak,  the  safety-valve  of  levity  in  some 
of  his  most  impassioned  moments.  At  the 
instant  of  intense  emotion,  when  the  specta- 
tors were  enthralled  by  his  magnetic  influ- 
ence,   the    tragedian's    overwrought   brain 


20 


■would  take  refuge  from  its  own  threatening 
storm  beneath  the  jester's  hood,  and,  while 
turned  from  the  audience,  he  would  whisper 
some  silliness,  or  'make  a  face.'  When  he 
left  the  stage,  however,  no  allusion  to  such 
seeming  frivolity  was  permitted.  His  fellow- 
actors  who  perceived  these  trivialities  igno- 
rantly  attributed  his  conduct  at  such  times  to 
lack  of  feeling  ;  whereas  it  was  extreme  ex- 
cess of  feeling  which  thus  forced  his  brain 
back  from  the  very  verge  of  madness.  Only 
those  who  have  known  the  torture  of  severe 
mental  tension  can  appreciate  the  value  of 
that  one  little  step  from  the  sublime  to  the 
ridiculous.  My  close  acquaintance  with  so 
fantastic  a  temperament  as  was  my  father's 
so  accustomed  me  to  that  in  him  that  much 
of  Hamlet's  'mystery'  seems  to  me  no  more 
than  idiosyncrasy. 

"  While  not  his  favorite,  my  presence 
seemed  necessary  to  him  when  at  work,  al- 
though at  other  times  he  almost  ignored  me, 
perhaps  because  his  other  children  were  more 
vivacious  and  amused  him  more. 


21 


"  Reserved  and  diffident,  almost  bashful, 
when  away  from  home,  my  father  behind  his 
locked  doors  and  bolted  shutters  was  as  glee- 
ful as  a  child.  Soon  after  sunrise  he  would 
dig  in  his  garden,  whistling  as  he  worked. 

Contented  within  his  family  circle,  he 

could  not  appreciate  the  necessity  for  any 
extraneous  element  there;  hence  his  wife  and 
children  became  isolated,  and  were  ill  at  ease 
m  the  p>resence  of  other  than  their  own  im- 
mediate relatives." 

The  young  actor  had  made  so  successful 
a  hit  as  Tressel  that  various  managers  tried 
to  induce  the  elder  Booth  to  allow  his  son's 
name  to  appear  on  programmes  with  his 
own.  To  every  offer  of  this  character  Junius 
Booth  held  out  a  stubborn  resistance.  Law- 
rence Barrett  has  told  this  story  of  that  time: 
"  On  one  occasion  an  old  friend,  then  manag- 
ing a  Western  theatre,  asked  Mr.  Booth  to 
allow  him  to  bill  Edwin  with  his  father.  He 
was  met  by  the  usual  curt  refusal,  but,  after 
a  moment's  pause,  and  without  any  sense  of 
the  humor  of  the  suggestion,  Booth  said  that 


22 


Edwin  was  a  good  ban jo-plaj'er,  and  he  could 
be  announced  for  a  solo  between  the  acts." 
With  no  greater  encouragement  from  his 
father,  and  being,  as  lie  was,  still  so  much 
absorbed  in  unremitting  care  of  him,  it  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  that  Edwin  made  so 
few  of  those  early  bows  before  the  curtain 
of  which  the  history  of  theatrical  families  is 
so  fuU.  His  next  public  appearance,  in  fact, 
was  not  until  Saturday,  August  2, 1850,  when 
he  and  J.  S.  Clarke  gave  by  invitation  a  dra- 
matic reading  in  the  court-house  at  Belair. 
The  story  of  it  is  an  old  one,  but  well  worth 
repeating.  Mrs.  Clarke  shows  us  the  ride  of 
these  two  enthusiastic  young  fellows  the  day 
before  over  twenty-five  miles  of  rough  coun- 
try road  and  under  a  hot  midsummer  sun  to 
order  in  Baltimore  printed  programmes  for 
the 'performance;  the  eagerness  of  the  rus- 
tics, who  expected  nothing  less  than  a  cir- 
cus; the  pasting  by  an  old  negro,  to  whom 
the  task  had  been  intrusted,  of  all  their  bills 
upside  down  ;  then  the  decorum  of  the  au- 
dience, the  men  and  women  separating  at 


23 


the  door  of  the  building  ;  and,  finally,  the 
unbroken  calm  and  silence  during  their  se- 
lections from  Macbeth,  RicMrcl  III.,  the  Mer- 
clinnt  of  Venice,  during  the  quarrel  scene 
from  Julius  Cmar,  which  had  made  the 
fame  of  the  young  striplings  in  their  school- 
daj's,  and  even  during  the  singing,  with 
blackened  faces,  of  negro  melodies  (not 
down  on  the  programme)  to  the  music  of 
banjo  and  bones.  A  grim  experience,  sure- 
ly, but  one,  happily,  in  which  the  humor  of 
the  situation  was  all  that  was  afterwards  re- 
membered. Those  printed  programmes  lay 
among  their  possessions  for  years. 

Probably  nowhere  on  any  stage  was  ever 
a  more  curious  entrance  seen  than  that  made 
by  Edwin  Booth  in  Richard  III.  It  was  at 
the  National  Theatre  in  Chatham  Street, 
New  York,  in  February,  1851.  The  elder 
and  the  younger  Booths  were  at  that  time 
housed  in  some  dingy,  inconvenient  quarter 
of  the  town,  the  father  having  always  a 
fondness  for  the  old  places  he  had  known 
in  his  youth,  those  that  had,  through  cir- 


24 


cumstance  of  poverty  perhaps,  slinmk  from 
joining  in  the  march  of  new  improvements. 
Here  on  one  occasion,  when  the  stage  trunli 
with  its  properties  for  Bichard  III.  had  al- 
ready been  strapped  to  the  waiting  carriage 
before  the  door,  and  w^hile  the  theatre,  some 
distance  awa}^  had  been  for  some  time  astir, 
Junius  Booth  sudden!}^  announced  that  notli- 
ing  w^ould  induce  him  to  phiy  that  night. 
All  the  entreaties,  the  arguments,  the  des- 
pair, of  his  son  failed  to  move  the  obdurate 
father,  "Go  play  it  3'ourself,"  w\as  all  he 
answered,  in  that  quick  curt  way  of  his  tliat 
was  one  of  his  strongest  characteristics. 
Seeing  the  liopelessness  of  further  effort,  the 
boy  drove  to  the  theatre.  "  No  matter,"  said 
John  R  Scott,  the  leading  support,  whom  he 
met;  "you  act  it,"  making  the  very  sug- 
gestion which  the  elder  Booth  had  made. 
While  the  audience  that  filled  the  house 
waited  before  the  curtain,  the  company  be- 
hind it,  in  the  wildest  excitement,  hurried 
Edwin  into  his  father's  costume,  one  mem- 
ber listening  during  the  process  to  his  reci- 


talion  of  the  soliloquy.  These  clothes  hung 
like  bags  about  Edwin,  and  the  applause 
■which  greeted  his  appearance  entirely  died 
away  when  the  audience,  who  had  been  in- 
formed of  no  change,  suddenly  found  itself 
confronted  with  a  stranger.  Yet,  in  spite 
of  the  almost  overwhelming  difficulties,  the 
young  actor  won  from  them  all  repeated  ap- 
plause, and  at  the  close  of  the  performance 
a  prolonged  call.  Mr,  Scott  then  first  made 
his  explanation,  introducing  Edwin  Booth 
as  "the  worthy  scion  of  a  noble  stock,"  add- 
ing, under  his  breath,  "  I'll  wager  they  don't 
know  what  that  means."  At  the  hotel,  on 
his  return,  Edwin  discovered  his  father  in 
apparently  the  same  position  and  mood  as 
when  he  had  left  him,  vouchsafing  no  re- 
mark, except  a  cold  question  in  regard  to 
how  he  had  succeeded.  Yet  he  always  be- 
lieved that  as  his  father  had  once  before 
seen  his  performance  of  Trcssel,  so  now  he 
had  witnessed  the  entire  tragedy  of  Pdcliard 
III.,  having  been  really  yqvj  much  pleased 
with  his  success  on  both  occasions.     Edwin 


was  at  that  time  barclj'  seventeen  years  of 
age.  In  his  later  life,  in  referring  to  those 
early  days,  he  wrote: 

"Theuceforih  he  [the  elder  Booth]  made 
no  great  objection  to  my  acting  occasionally 
with  him,  although  he  never  gave  me  iu- 
struction,  professional  advice,  or  encourage- 
ment in  any  form.  He  had  doubtless  re- 
solved to  make  me  work  my  way  unaided; 
and  though  his  seeming  indiiference  Avas 
painful  then,  it  compelled  me  to  exercise  my 
callow  wits;  it  made  me  think T' 

Under  Theodore  Barton,  of  Baltimore,  at  a 
salary  of  six  dollars  a  week,  Edwin  played, 
shortly  after,  an  unimportant  engagement  in 
still  more  unimportant  roles.  And  it  is  a 
curious  fact  that  this  young  actor,  who  was 
able  to  satisfy  in  Richard  III.  an  audience 
awaiting  his  father,  should  have  utterly 
failed  in  minor  parts,  Madame  Ciocca,  with 
whom  he  essayed  pantomime,  openly  abus- 
ing him  for  his  gaudier ie. 

It  was  about  this  time — he  was  uncertain 
of  the  date — that  Edwin,  as  he  was  in  after- 


27 


years  very  foud  of  telling,  played  Titus  to 
his  father's  Brutus  one  night  iti  Washing- 
ton, and  in  the  presence  of  the  author,  John 
Howard  Payne.  During  the  same  engage- 
ment, in  the  same  city,  he  remembered  play- 
ing Young  Norval — the  Old  Norval  of  his 
father — in  a  gown  borrowed  from  the  lead- 
ing lady's  costume  of  Helen  Macgregor, 
using  the  skirts  as  a  kilt,  and  wearing  tho 
bodice,  as  he  expressed  it,  "hind  side  be- 
fore." These  are  but  poor  examples  of  the 
curious  and  interesting  experience  of  his 
early  life  which  his  friends  have  so  often 
heard  him  relate. 

In  1852  the  father  and  son  undertook 
that  memorable  journey  to  California  which 
brought  so  many  changes  into  their  lives. 
They  crossed  the  Isthmus  on  mules.  Each 
man  as  he  slept  held  a  pistol  in  his  hand. 
To.  the  one  lady  of  the  party  a  hammock 
was  given.  The  men  lay  on  wine  casks 
and  barrels,  over  which  blankets  had  been 
thrown.  Edwin  kept  silent  watch  through 
the  long  hours,  hearing  but  not  understand- 


ing  the  low  whispers  of  the  natives,  who  sat 
sharpening  great  knives  near  by,  while  rats, 
undisturbed  by  the  intruders,  ran  about  the 
hut. 

After  two  weeks  in  San  Francisco  the 
Booths  went  to  Sacramento,  but  affairs  in 
California  were  at  that  time  in  so  deplorable 
a  condition  that  the  elder  Booth  insisted  on 
returning  East,  and  on  leaving  Edwin  be- 
hind him  to  gain  an  experience  which  the 
father  felt  would  be  of  inestimable  value  to 
him.  It  had  been  at  the  solicitation  of  Jun- 
ius Brutus  Booth,  Juu.,  that  the  journey 
was  originally  planned.  Brilliant  results  had 
been  hoped  for,  but  a  period  of  great  de- 
pression had  begun  in  California  for  those 
early  settlers,  who,  a  few  months  before, 
had  been  elated  beyond  measure  by  belief 
in  the  prospects  of  enormous  wealth.  The 
promised  theatre  in  San  Francisco  had  not 
even  been  started,  and  men  were  too  fright- 
ened or  too  poor  to  make  serious  financial 
ventures  of  any  kind. 

There  certainly  could  hardl}'  have  been  a 


J 


29 


less  propitious  time  for  a  young  and  inex- 
perienced actor  to  face  the  world  alone. 
And  there  now  began  for  Edwin  Booth  a 
long  and  strange  series  of  vicissitudes,  such 
as  would  have  tried  the  nerve  of  manj'-  a 
veteran,  and  which  can  hardly  be  repeated 
in  the  life  of  the  newer  generation  of  to-day. 
It  was  not  alone  that  he  was  absolutely  pen- 
niless, but  that,  being  penniless,  he  had  to 
carve  his  way  to  success  through  almost  in- 
surmountable difficulties,  in  mining  camps, 
in  half-settled  and  wholly  new  communities, 
and  this  in  the  cold  of  winter  nights,  and 
after  having  been  snow-bound  upon  the 
mountain  roads  sometimes  for  days  to- 
gether. 

It  was  in  one  of  the  dreariest  of  all  these 
places,  as  Mrs.  Clarke  tells  us,  that  the  news 
of  his  father's  death  reached  him.  "  There 
is  a  mail,  and  a  letter  ioryou,"  said  some  one 
wiio  recognized  him  by  the  light  of  a  lan- 
tern, as  he  walked  in  the  slush  and  mud  of 
a  miserable  little  town,  where  gold  diggers 
had  undermined  the  houses,  and  left  deep 


and  yawning 
courier,  long  dela3'ed  by  the  snows,  had  at 
last  broken  through  the  great  banks  and 
brought  the  mail.  "What  news  is  there?" 
Edwin  had  asked,  but  knew  in  a  moment 
what  his  old  friend  Spear  was  afraid  to  tell 
him.  The  blow  was  crushing ;  and  this 
loyal,  hypersensitive  son  found  it  difficult 
to  forgive  himself  for  what  lie  imagined  to 
be  the  desertion  of  his  father. 

Financial  straits  of  greater  severitj'  settled 
down  upon  this  sorrowing  youth  and  his 
friends.  They  walked  for  fifty  miles  through 
snow-drifts  for  engagements,  oul}^  to  dis- 
band at  their  destination — Marysville.  With 
a  borrowed  ten  dollars  in  his  pocket,  Edwin 
started  for  Sacramento,  to  find  when  he 
reached  there  that  fire  and  flood  had  nearly 
destro3'ed  the  town.  From  Sacramento  he 
went  at  once  to  San  Francisco,  with  no  pros- 
pects and  in  utter  despair.  There  some 
friend  returned  him  twenty  dollars,  lent  and 
forgotten  long  before,  and  for  the  first,  last, 
and  only  time  in   his  life  he  "svalked  into 


one  of  the  gambling  saloons,  too  common  in 
those  daj^s,  and  lost  it,  all! 

It  may  be  lilting  in  this  connection  to 
say  a  word  here  concerning  a  very  serious 
charge,  the  public  discussion  of  which  caused 
the  subject  of  it  much  unhappiness.  Edwin 
Booth  was  not  a  drinking  man.  During  a 
long  and  intimate  friendship  witli  liim  of 
nearly  twenty  years'  standing,  in  all  kinds  of 
society  and  under  all  circumstances,  some 
of  them  the  most  trying  that  man  can  en- 
dure, I  have  never  seen  him  touch  brandy, 
whiskey,  or  spirits  of  any  kind,  and  I  do 
not  remember  his  drinking  even  the  lightest 
of  table  wines  half  a  dozen  times  during  all 
that  period.  And  in  this  I  will  be  heartily 
supported  b}'  the  testimony  of  those  who 
have  been  associated  with  him  in  any  way. 
He  was  subject  to  attacks  of  vertigo  long 
before  his  first  slight  stroke  of  paralysis 
upon  the  stage  at  Rochester  in  1889,  and  his 
occasional  feebleness  and  unsteadiness  of 
speech  and  of  movement  were  entirely  at- 
tributable to  that  cause.     It  is  safe  to  assert 


32 


that  any  temperate  man  willi  an  ordinarily 
strong  head  for  such  things  could  drink  at  a 
single  sitting,  and  without  showing  or  feel- 
ing its  effects,  all  the  wine  and  liquor  put  to- 
gether which  Mr.  Booth  consumed  during 
the  last  five  years  of  his  life. 

But  to  return  to  those  early  days  in  Cali- 
fornia. About  this  time,  Fairchild,  a  scene- 
painter  in  San  Francisco,  induced  Booth  to 
play  Richard  III.  at  his  (Fairchild's)  benefit, 
which  he  did  with  such  success  that  the 
managers,  departing  from  their  original  in- 
tention—  that  of  devoting  their  theatre  to 
comedy— proposed  to  Booth  the  production 
of  certain  tragedies.  He  then  plaj^ed  Sir  Ed- 
ward Mortimer,  Shylock,  Richard  III.,  and 
Othello.  At  his  own  benefit,  which  followed, 
he  assumed  the  part  of  Hamlet  for  the  first 
time.  According  to  Mrs.  Clarke,  Booth's 
choice  of  Hamlet  on  this  occasion  was  made 
for  reasons  he  held  sacred.  Long  before,  dur- 
ing that  unproductive  stay  at  Sacramento, 
Edwin,  playing  Jaffler  to  his  father's  Pierre, 
bad,  while  in  the  black  dress  of  that  charac- 


33 


ter,  come  suddenly  upon  his  father  on  the 
steps  of  his  dressing-room,  to  be  greeted  by 
him  in  his  characteristic  way:  "You  look 
like  Hamlet.  Why  did  you  not  do  it  for 
your  benefit?"  and  Edwin  had  answered, 
"If  I  ever  have  another  benefit,  I  will." 

After  his  father's  death  these  words, 
though  carelessly  spoken,  had  assumed  for 
him  the  solemnity  of  a  promise.  And  his 
promise  he  always  kept.  He  did  not  remem- 
ber in  after-years  the  date  of  this  memorable 
first  performance  of  Hamlet,  and  the  bill  of 
that  night  was  lost,  unfortunately,  with  his 
other  treasured  Penates,  at  the  time  of  the 
destruction  of  the  Winter  Garden  Theatre 
in  New  York. 

This  benefit  was  followed  by  precarious 
days.  Booth  found  himself  gradually  forced 
into  the  position  of  a  stock  star  on  a  miser- 
able salary.  His  name  was  used  to  draw 
when  the  names  of  others  failed.  He  played 
secondary  parts  to  Mrs.  Catherine  Sinclair, 
who  had  come  to  open  the  new  theatre. 
James  Murdock  followed,  and  then  came 
5 


34 


Laura  Keene,  who  ascribed  her  failure  to 
"Edwin  Booth's  bad  acting"!  Mr.  D.  C. 
Anderson  and  Booth  at  that  time  were  liv- 
ing in  a  little  hut  on  the  outskirts  of  San 
Francisco,  cooking  their  own  meals,  and 
washing  and  mending  their  own  clothes. 

Booth  was  persuaded  by  Mr.  Anderson  to 
go  with  him  to  Australia,  actors  returning 
from  that  countryhaving  given  glowing  ac- 
counts of  the  prospects  and  possibilities 
there.  He  played,  when  at  Sydney,  Shylock 
to  Miss  Keene's  Portia.  His  Richard  III.  was 
received  with  great  applause.  But  the  un- 
favorable conditions  existing  at  Melbourne 
induced  this  wandering  band  of  players  to 
return  home.  On  their  way  to  California 
their  vessel  stopped  at  Honolulu,  where 
Booth  put  all  his  money,  fifty  dollars,  into 
the  rent  for  one  month  of  the  Royal  Hawai- 
ian Theatre,  and  where  Mr.  Roe,  a  short, 
thick-set  German,  doubling  his  parts,  played 
both  the  Duke  and  the  Duchess  of  York. 

The  Hawaiian  court  was  at  that  time  in 
mourning.     The  King  of  the  Sandwich  Isl- 


35 


ands  as  a  child  had  seen  the  elder  Booth  as 
Richard  III.  in  New  York,  and  not  "wish- 
ing to  miss  the  performance  of  the  son  in 
this  same  role,  he  went  to  the  theatre,  at- 
tended by  two  escorts,  and  sat  on  an  arm- 
chair in  the  wings.  When  in  the  coronation 
scene  this  chair  was  needed  as  a  throne,  the 
King,  with  perfect  amiability,  yielded  it  to 
the  uncrowned  monarch  of  the  stage. 

Another  benefit  was  given  him  before 
sailing,  when  he  played  King  Lear  for  the 
first  time. 

On  his  return  to  San  Francisco,  Booth 
played,  at  the  Metropolitan  Theatre,  Bene- 
dick to  Mrs.  Sinclair's  Beatrice.  A  short 
and  successful  engagement  followed  at  the 
American  Theatre,  and  then  once  more 
Booth  went  to  Sacramento,  where  the  man- 
ager, for  economical  reasons,  dismissed  him. 
With  Mr.  Sedley,  Mrs.  Sinclair,  and  a  Mr. 
Venua,  he  then  leased  a  shabby  theatre,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  America  The  Ilarhle 
Heart  was  produced,  Booth  creating  the  part 
of  Raphael.     The  success  of  this  play  was 


enormous  there,  but  on  the  road  it  proved  so 
great  a  failure  that  the  company  disbanded  ; 
and  Booth  was  again  obliged  to  make  new 
overtures.  He  -went  next  to  San  Francisco, 
and  from  there,  with  eight  or  ten  persons, 
he  started  on  a  tour  through  the  mining 
towns— Booth  on  horseback  ;  the  manager, 
his  wife,  and  the  stage  properties  in  a  large 
covered  wagon.  Stops  were  made  at  settle- 
ments of  only  a  few  huts,  and  The  Iron 
Chest  and  Eathcrine  and  Petruchio  were  on 
the  standard  bill. 

The  profits  from  this  journey  were  not 
great ;  and  Booth,  having  left  his  horse  in 
payment  for  a  debt,  arrived  in  a  penniless 
condition  in  Sacramento.  Here  meeting  Mr. 
Butler,  an  architect,  he  was  made  by  that 
gentleman  to  see  the  importance  of  his  re- 
turn to  the  East,  where  other  men  were 
trying  to  fill  the  place  left  vacant  by  his  fa- 
ther. Two  benefits  having  been  arranged 
by  Mr.  Butler,  Booth  left  Sacramento  free 
from  debt,  and  carrying  with  him  various 
testimonials  from  the  public. 


'^^""^f^ 


3T 


Those  who  welcomed  his  return  to  his  old 
home  in  Maryland  found  few  changes  in  his 
appearance.  "He  had  comeback  older  in 
experience  only,"  says  Mrs.  Clarke,  "for  he 
looked  like  a  boy  still,  and  very  fragile;  his 
wild  black  eyes  and  long  locks  gave  him  an 
air  of  melancholy.  He  had  the  gentle  dig- 
nity and  inherent  grace  that  one  attributes 
to  a  young  prince,  yet  he  was  merry,  cheer- 
ful, and  boyish  in  disposition,  as  one  can 
imagine  Hamlet  to  have  been  in  the  days 
before  the  tragedy  was  enacted  in  the  or- 
chard." 

Booth  opened  at  the  Front  Street  Theatre 
Baltimore,  in  the  ^character  of  Richard  IH. 
Under  J.  T,  Ford  he  played  a  short  engage- 
ment in  Washington,  and  at  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, where  Joseph  Jefferson  was  at  that 
time  stage  -  manager.  It  was  here  that  he 
met  Miss  Mary  Devlin,  who  afterwards  be- 
came his  wife,  and  who  was  then  a  member 
of  Mr.  Jefferson's  personal  and  dramatic 
family. 

In  the  spring  of  1857,  Booth,  having  ac- 


cepted  an  offer  from  Thomas  Barry,  played 
Sir  Giles  Overreach  at  the  Boston  Theatre. 
His  success  was  instantaneous.  He  followed 
this  character  with  a  round  of  others,  and 
on  May  4th  he  made  his  bow  before  a  New 
York  audience  as  Richard  III.,  at  the  Me- 
tropolitan Theatre,  afterwards  the  Winter 
Garden,  and  then  managed  by  William  E. 
Burton.  It  had  been  entirely  in  opposition 
to  the  expressed  wishes  of  the  star  that  an- 
nouncements of  his  appearance  as  Eichard 
III.  had  been  made.  A  character  so  closely 
identified  with  the  great  successes  of  his 
father  was  hardly  the  one  in  which  this  son 
cared  to  present  himself.  Everything  in  his 
sensitive  nature  was  offended  at  the  whole 
proceeding.  It  was  with  a  feeling  of  out- 
raged mortification  and  indignation  that  on 
his  arrival  in  New  York  he  read  the  flaming 
posters  announcing  him  as  "The  Hope  of 
the  Living  Drama!"  "  Son  of  the  Great  Tra- 
gedian!" and  adding,  "Richard's  himself 
again!" 

The  actors  who  played  with  him,  to  whom 


39 


rumors  of  his  fame  had  come,  were  not  alto- 
gether prepared  for  the  manner  of  man  he 
was.  Lawrence  Barrett,  who  was  Tressel 
on  that  opeuhig  night,  thus  describes  his 
first  appearance  at  rehearsal:  "A  slight  pale 
youth,  with  black  flowing  hair,  soft  brown 
eyes  full  of  tenderness  and  gentle  timidity, 
a  manner  mixed  with  shyness  and  quiet  re- 
pose. He  took  his  place  with  no  air  of  con- 
quest or  self-assertion,  and  gave  his  direc- 
tions with  a  grace  and  courtesy  which  have 
never  left  him."  In  the  company  on  this 
occasion  were  many  famous  players — John 
Gilbert,  Daniel  Setchell,  Mark  Smith,  Charles 
Fisher,  and  Lawrence  Barrett. 

During  the  next  few  years  Booth  played 
in  Baltimore,  Richmond,  Charleston,  Savan- 
nah, Memphis,  Mobile,  Montgomery,  St. 
Louis,  and  Louisville.  In  the  winter  of  1857 
he  was  at  the  Howard  Athenaeum,  in  Boston, 
under  the  management  of  E.  L.  Davenport, 
with  Lawrence  Barrett  and  John  McCul- 
lough  in  the  company.  While  in  Boston 
he  began  that  careful  revision  of  his  plays 


40 


which  finally  resulted  in  the  Echcin  Bootli's 
Prompt-Books,  edited  by  William  Winter  in 
1878. 

In  1860  Booth  married  Miss  Devlin,  who 
had  retired  from  the  stage  the  year  before. 

During  this  year  (1860)  he  played  at  the 
Arch  Street  Theatre,  Philadelphia,  under 
the  management  of  Whealley  and  Clarke, 
giving  for  the  first  time  his  new  interpre- 
tation of  Bertuccio,  in  Tom  Taylor's  FooVs 
Revenge. 

On  December  10,  1860,  Booth  and  Miss 
Charlotte  Cushman  began  ten  performances 
at  the  Academy  of  Music,  Philadelphia, 
playing  Wolsey  and  Queen  Katharine  in 
Henry  VIII.,  Macbeth  and  Lady  Macbeth, 
Shylock  and  Portia,  Katherine  and  Petru- 
chio.  Booth's  Macbeth,  full  as  it  was  of 
fine  intellectual  quality,  failed  to  please  Miss 
Cushman,  who  begged  him  to  remember  that 
"  Macbeth  was  not  the  father  of  all  the  Bow- 
ery villains  !" 

In  September,  1861,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth 
sailed  for  England.     A  series  of  accidents 


and  misunderstandings  made  their  visit  al- 
most a  failure.  In  London  he  was  met  with 
what  bordered  closely  upon  open  hostility. 
He  opened  at  the  Haymarket  Theatre  as 
Shylock,  and  played  during  this  engagement 
Sir  Giles  Overreach.  BicJiard  III.  was  pro- 
duced at  the  request  of  E.  H.  Sothern,  but 
the  support  was  so  bad  that  the  perform- 
ance became  almost  a  farce.  After  much 
hesitation,  Mr.  Buckstone,  Booth's  manager, 
consented  to  his  appearance  as  Richelieu. 
Groups  of  men  had  gathered  before  and  be- 
hind the  curtain  to  hiss  the  performance, 
but  the  spell  of  Booth's  magnetic  acting 
roused  the  house  to  the  wildest  pitch  of  ex- 
citement, and  adverse  demonstration  was 
impossible.  Unfortunately,  just  at  this  mo- 
ment, when  his  triumph  was  complete.  Booth 
was  obliged  to  leave  Loudon.  He  played 
for  three  weeks  at  Manchester,  Henry  Irving 
being  a  member  of  the  stock  company.  He 
afterwards  went  to  Paris,  where  the  sword 
worn  by  Frederic  Lemaitre  in  Buy  Bias, 
now  the  property  of  The  Players,  was  pre- 


42 


sented  to  him.  On  his  return  to  England, 
finding  that  Fechter  was  monopolizing  the 
Shakespearian  drama,  Booth  sailed  for 
America.  During  the  early  part  of  his  visit 
to  England  his  only  daughter  was  horn,  at 
Fulham,  in  the  month  of  December,  1861. 

On  September  2.  1863,  he  began  a  success- 
ful engagement  at  the  Winter  Garden  The- 
atre, Mr.  and  Mrs.  F.  B.  Conway  supporting 
him.  In  Philadelphia  he  played  Macbeth 
to  Miss  Cushman's  Lady  Macbeth,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Woman's  Branch  of  the  United 
States  Sanitary  Commission.  On  February 
9, 1863,  his  wife,  Mary  Devlin  Booth,  died  at 
Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  where  she  had 
gone  in  failing  health. 

Booth  did  not  appear  before  the  public 
again  for  some  months  after  the  death  of 
his  wife,  that  loyal  friend  Lawrence  Barrett 
playing  for  him  Richard  III.  and  Buy  Bias. 

With  Mr.  J.  S.  Clarke,  the  friend  of  his 
school  <iays,  and  his  sister's  husband.  Booth, 
in  October,  1863,  purchased  the  Walnut 
Street  Theatre  in  Philadelphia.    On  March 


28,  1864,  having  dissolved  partnersliip  with 
Clarke,  he  played  The  Fool's  Revenge  at 
Niblo's  Garden,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
New  York.  On  August  18,  1864,  the  Win- 
ter Garden  Theatre  was  opened  by  Booth, 
John  S.  Clarke,  and  William  Stuart.  Mr. 
Stuart  was  known  as  the  manager,  but  the 
leasing  of  the  theatre  had  been  undertaken 
in  order  to  give  Booth  an  opportunity  for 
his  own  arrangement  and  setting  of  the 
plays.  He  occupied  a  suite  of  rooms  in  the 
theatre,  narrowly  escaping  from  them  with 
his  life  when  the  building  was  burned  in 
1867. 

Booth  voted  but  once  in  life,  and  that  was 
for  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  November,  1864. 
Not  many  days  after  this,  on  November  25, 
1864,  the  three  Booth  brothers  appeared  in 
Julius  CcBsar — Junius  Brutus  Booth  as  Cas- 
sius,  Edwin  as  Brutus,  and  John  Wilkes 
as  Marc  Antony.  "The  eldest,"  writes  Mr. 
Clarke,  "powerfully  built  and  handsome  as 
an  antique  Roman,  Edwin  with  his  mag- 
netic fire  and  graceful  dignity,   and  John 


Wilkes,  iu  the  perfection  of  youthful  beaut}^ 
stood  side  by  side,  again  and  again,  before 
the  curtain."  The  aged  mother  of  the  Booths 
sat  looking  at  them  from  a  private  box. 

Following  quickly  upon  this  performance, 
and  on  the  night  of  November  26, 1864,  Ed- 
win Booth  began  his  hundred  consecutive 
nights  of  Hamlet.  The  play  was  mounted 
with  a  magnificence  unknown  in  the  history 
of  the  American  stage  since  the  days  of 
Charles  Kean  at  the  old  Park  Theatre,  and 
enjoyed  a  longer  run  than  any  other  play 
of  Shakespeare  had  done  up  to  that  time. 
"I  remember  well,"  says  Mrs.  John  Sher- 
wood, "  in  the  first  year  of  our  war,  when 
we  were  profoundly  miserable  and  fright- 
ened, what  a  relief  it  was  to  go  and  see 
Booth  in  Hamlet."  "  He  is  altogether  prince- 
ly," wrote  Mr.  George  William  Curtis  in 
those  days.  "His  playing  throughout  has  an 
exquisite  tone  like  an  old  picture. ...  It  is 
not  any  particular  scene,  or  passage,  or  look, 
or  movement,  that  conveys  the  impression; 
it  is  the  consistency  of  every  part  with  every 


other,  the  pervasive  sense  of  the  mind  of 
a  true  gentleman  sadly  strained  and 
jarred." 

A  romantic  interest  attaches  to  the  skull 
used  by  Booth  in  the  graveyard  scene  in 
Hamlet.  During  one  of  his  father's  visits  to 
Louisville,  years  before,  the  horse-thief  Lov- 
ett,  then  lying  in  jail,  was  pointed  out  to 
him.  The  elder  Booth,  being  at  all  times  a 
man  of  ready  sympathy,  and  hearing  that 
Lovett  had  no  means  of  obtaining  counsel, 
employed  a  lawyer  for  his  defence,  though 
he  understood  from  the  first  that  Lovett  had 
no  case.  Lovett,  out  of  gratitude,  bequeath- 
ed his  skull  to  Junius  Booth  to  be  used  in 
Hamlet,  "  that  he  might  think  when  he  held 
it  in  his  hands  of  the  gratitude  his  kindness 
had  awakened."  After  Lovett's  death  this 
skull  was  sent  to  the  elder  Booth.  Edwin 
used  it  for  some  time,  but  finding  that  the 
grave-diggers  injured  it,  he  substituted  for 
it  a  property  skull.  Lovett's  skull  is  now 
carefully  preserved  on  a  bracket  in  the  cor- 
ner of  the  apartment  at  The  Pla3'^ers  which 


Mr.  Booth  reserved  for  himself,  and  occupied 
during  the  last  years  of  his  life. 

Booth  played  Sir  Edward  Mortimer  at  the 
Boston  Theatre  on  the   night  of  April  14, 

1865.  The  next  morning  the  news  of  the 
great  calamity  which  had  befallen  the  coun- 
try reached  him.  Resolving  to  leave  the 
stage  at  once  and  forever,  he  retired,  over- 
whelmed with  sorrow  and  shame,  to  his 
home  in  New  York,  where  he  lived  in  the 
strictest  retirement  and  the  deepest  dejection 
for  many  months,  supported  by  the  kindly 
sympathy  of  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  Launt 
Thompson,  and  other  old  and  trusted  friends. 

Many  urgent  reasons  made  Booth's  return 
to  the  stage  both  a  necessity  and  an  obliga- 
tion, and  at  last  he  reappeared  at  the  Winter 
Garden  Theatre  as  Hamlet  on  January  3, 

1866.  In  the  streets,  as  the  crowds  gathered, 
angry  threats  were  heard,  though,  for  the 
most  part,  a  kind  and  temperate  spirit  pre- 
vailed, while  inside  the  theatre  men  from 
every  part  of  the  country  had  assembled. 
Nine  times  they  cheered  him  as  he  entered. 


47 


Showers  of  flowers  fell  upon  the  stage,  and 
the  house  was  shaken  with  the  tumult  of  ap- 
plause. In  Boston,  Philadelphia,  wherever 
he  appeared  after  this  momentous  return, 
the  same  generous  welcome  was  accorded 
him. 

During  the  engagement  at  the  Winter 
Garden  Theatre  the  presentation  to  Booth  of 
the  famous  "Hamlet  Medal"  was  made. 
After  the  performance  of  the  tragedy  on 
January  22d,  Booth,  still  in  his  stage  dress, 
received  a  notable  group  of  men.  Admiral 
Farragut,  Major- General  Robert  Anderson, 
John  T.  Hoffman,  George  Bancroft,  Charles 
A.  Dana,  Judge  Daly,  S.  R  Gifford,  Launt 
Thompson,  Jervis  McEntee,  were  among  the 
number.  William  Fullerton  made  the  pres- 
entation speech. 

In  January,  1866,  Booth,  with  J.  S.  Clarke, 
leased  the  Boston  Theatre.  After  his  en- 
gagement in  Boston  he  appeared  in  Phila- 
delphia on  the  23d  of  April,  1866,  to  com- 
memorate the  anniversary  of  the  "  Birth  and 
Death  of  Shakespeare."    During  the  fifty- 


48 


one  nights  which  succeeded  he  played  Othel- 
lo, Romeo,  Shylock,  Richard  III.,  Ruj  Bias, 
Don  Cesar  de  Bazan,  Hamlet,  Richelieu,  Pe- 
truchio,  The  Stranger,  Bertuccio,  Sir  Giles 
Overreach,  and  Pescara.  Hamlet  ran  for 
twenty -one  nights.  Booth  produced  Rich- 
elieu at  the  Winter  Garden  on  February  1, 
1866.  On  the  29th  of  the  following  Decem- 
ber he  played  lago  to  the  Othello  of  Bogumil 
Dawison,  Othello  speaking  German,  lago 
English,  and  Desdemona  (Madame  Methua 
Schiller)  German  to  Othello  and  English  to 
the  rest  of  the  company.  The  event  of  this 
season  (1866-7)  was  the  production  of  the 
Merchant  of  Venice  on  January  28, 1867,  this 
play  running  for  seven  weeks.  On  the  22d 
of  March,  Brutus,  or  the  Fall  of  Tarquin, 
was  given.  On  the  23d  of  INIarch  the  theatre 
was  burned,  Booth  losing  all  his  properties, 
including  many  articles  once  belonging  to 
Edmund  Kean,  John  Philip  Kemble,  and 
Mrs.  Siddons. 

The  destruction  of  this  house  led  to  the 
building  of  Booth's  Theatre.  To  raise  money 


for  this  enterprise  Booth  travelled  for  two 
years.  la  Chicago  Miss  Mary  j^l'Vicker, 
whom  he  afterwards  married,  made  her  first 
appearance  as  Juliet  to  his  Romeo.  In  Bal- 
timore he  played  Sir  Giles  Overreach,  Miss 
M'Vicker  playing  Margaret.  Owing  to  an 
unfortunate  sword  thrust  while  playing  Pes- 
cara  in  the  Apostate,  he  was  obliged  to  act  in 
Hamlet,  Richard  III.,  and  Othello  carrying 
his  right  arm  in  a  sling,  fencing  with  his 
left.  After  his  engagement  in  Baltimore  he 
made  a  tour  of  the  Southern  and  Western 
States. 

Booth's  Theatre  was  opened  on  the  3d  of 
February,  1869,  with  the  production  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  given  for  the  first  time  in 
America  in  the  original  text  of  Shakespeare. 
The  house  of  Juliet  in  the  second  act  was 
sixty  feet  in  height,  and  had  two  balconies, 
one  above  the  other.  Romeo's  ladder  was 
thrown  over  the  balustrade  of  this  solidly 
constructed  building.  Fifty  men  were  re- 
quired to  set  and  draw  the  "loggia  scene" 
above  the  flies.  The  play  ran  for  sixty-eight 
7 


nights,  Booth  pla3'iDg  Romeo,  Miss  M'Vicker 
Juliet,  and  Edwin  Adams  Mercutio. 

The  Mom'  of  Venice  was  produced  on  April 
19,  1869,  Edwin  Adams  and  Edwin  Booth 
alternating  as  Othello,  Miss  M'Vicker  playing 
Desdemona.  On  June  21st  Enoch  Arden 
was  given  by  Adams,  the  theatre  remaining 
open  during  the  summer.  Booth  and  Miss 
M'Vicker  w^ere  married  June  7,  1869,  the 
lady  retiring  permanently  from  the  stage. 
She  died  on  her  husband's  birthday,  on  the 
13th  of  November,  1881. 

Among  the  plays  produced  by  Booth  at 
his  theatre  were  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Winter's 
Tale,  Hamlet,  Richelieu,  Julius  Ccesar,  The 
Moor  of  Venice,  Macbeth,  Lady  of  Lyons,  The 
Lron  Chest,  Merchant  of  Venice,  Richard  IIL , 
A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts,  FooVs  Revenge, 
The  Fall  of  Tarquin,  and  Don  Cesar  de  Ba- 
zan.  When  Booth  travelled,  other  "stars" 
filled  the  time  at  the  theatre.  Miss  Neilson, 
Joseph  Jefferson,  Miss  Bateman,  and  J.  S. 
Clarke  appearing  there  at  intervals. 

Edwin  Adams  was  Booth's  leading  man, 


51 


and  had  the  privilege  of  producing  liis  own 
plays  on  Saturday  nights.  With  Lawrence 
Barrett  the  same  arrangement  was  made  the 
season  following. 

Booth's  Theatre,  which  had  taken  two 
years  in  building,  had  cost  him  in  its  con- 
struction over  a  million  of  dollars.  But  the 
nervous  strain  of  managing  so  vast  an  affair, 
together  with  his  acting,  proved  too  great. 
In  1873  the  theatre  was  leased  to  J.  B. 
Booth,  who  met  with  little  success,  and 
Booth  found  himself  suddenly  bankrupt. 
He  surrendered  to  his  creditors  all  his  per- 
sonal and  private  property,  including  his 
books,  and  retired  to  Cos  Cob,  Connecticut. 
So  perished  one  of  his  fondest  hopes. 

Booth  on  October  25,  1875,  opened  at  Mr. 
Daly's  Fifth  Avenue  Theatre.  At  this  time 
he  produced  for  the  first  time  his  own  adap- 
tation of  Shakespeare's  Richard  11. ,  a  play 
once  acted  by  both  Edmund  Kean  and  the 
elder  Booth,  but  afterward  allowed  by  them 
to  fall  into  disuse. 

During   this  engagement    Booth    played 


52 


King  Lear  from  the  origiual  text.  With  J. 
T.  Ford  he  travelled  through  the  South, 
giving  fifty  -  two  performances.  With  Mr. 
M'Vicker  he  travelled  in  the  West,  his  en- 
gagement closing  in  June,  1876. 

John  McCuUough,  understanding  the  ex- 
tent of  Booth's  bankruptcy,  urged  his  going 
to  California.  On  the  5th  of  September, 
1876,  Booth  arrived  in  San  Francisco,  twenty 
years  to  a  daj^  since  he  had  left  the  city. 
His  old  friend  D.  C.  Anderson  was  still 
there,  but  all  traces  of  their  former  haunts 
had  disappeared. 

Booth's  success  in  San  Francisco  was 
overwhelming.  During  the  same  season  he 
was  again,  however,  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre, 
New  York,  under  the  management  of  Mr. 
M'Vicker.  At  the  Academy  of  Music  in 
Brooklyn,  while  still  under  Mr.  M'Vicker's 
management.  Booth  played  to  enormous 
houses,  although  the  panic  caused  by  the 
burning  of  the  Brooklyn  Theatre,  wdth  a 
loss  of  more  than  three  hundred  lives,  had 
almost  destroyed  the  business  of  every  other 


company.  He  then  went  to  Philadelpliica, 
Baltimore,  and  Ciucinnali,  closing  his  long 
engagement  on  the  19th  of  May,  1877,  with 
three  weeks  at  the  Globe  Theatre  in  Boston 
On  September  10,  1877,  he  was  again  at 
work  under  Mr.  M'Vicker,  in  Chicago,  Cin- 
cinnati, Louisville,  Cleveland,  St.  Louis, 
Buffalo,  Lockport,  Rochester,  Syracuse, 
Utica,  and  Albany.  In  January,  1878,  he 
rented  Booth's  Theatre,  playing  for  six 
weeks  under  his  own  management.  Later 
he  played  at  the  Park  Theatre,  Boston,  for 
three  weeks,  then  at  Pittsburg  for  two,  for 
two  at  Baltimore,  and  for  three  weeks  at 
Clarke's  Broad  Street  Theatre,  in  Phila- 
delphia, For  five  weeks  he  appeared  at  the 
Fifth  Avenue  Theatre,  and  later  he  went  to 
Detroit  and  Chicago.  In  Chicago,  on  the 
night  of  April  23d  (Shakespeare's  birth-day), 
he  was  fired  at  from  the  pit  by  a  lunatic 
named  Gray.  At  the  third  shot  he  Tose  and 
walked  to  the  foot-lights,  pointing  out  the 
would-be  assassin  to  the  startled  audience. 
The  excitement  naturally  was  intense.     One 


54 


of  the  bullets  missed  him  by  a  few  inches. 
Had  he  left  his  chair  at  the  proper  and  ex- 
pected moment  m  the  ]^\siy—Bic7iard  II. — 
he  could  not  have  escaped.  This  bullet  he 
preserved  as  a  talisman,  wearing  it  on  his 
watch-chain,  having  engraved  upon  it 
"From  Mark  Gray  to  Edwin  Booth,  April 
23,  1879."  From  every  part  of  the  country 
expressions  of  congratulation  reached  him, 
when,  as  his  sister  observed,  he  particularly 
"needed  such  sympathy  to  stimulate  him  in 
the  pursuit  of  his  profession,  for  so  many 
adverse  circumstances  seemed  to  conspire 
to  enervate  and  overcome  his  powers." 

At  the  close  of  his  Chicago  engagement 
Booth  rested  till  October  6th,  when  he  began 
a  two  weeks'  engagement  in  Baltimore,  go- 
ing from  there  to  the  Broad  Street  Theatre 
in  Philadelphia,  and  for  four  weeks  playing 
at  the  Grand  Opera-house  in  New  York. 
Under  Mr.  Abbey's  management  he  began  a 
brilliant  engagement  at  the  Park  Theatre, 
Boston,  in  March,  1880.  Under  Mr.  Abbey 
again  he  played,  in   April,  1880,  for  four 


weeks  at  Booth's  Theatre.  After  an  engage- 
ment in  Brooklyn,  Booth  played  Petruchio 
at  the  Madison  Square  Theatre,  New  York, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  ' '  Edgar  Poe  Memorial 
Fund,"  this  being  his  last  performance  be- 
fore sailing  for  England.  On  the  15th  of 
June  a  public  breakfast  was  given  to  him 
at  Delmonico's,  New  York.  The  speeches 
were  made  by  Judge  John  R.  Brady,  Judge 
Charles  P.  Daly,  Algernon  S.  Sullivan,  Ed- 
mund C.  Stedraan,  Rev.  Robert  CoUyer, 
Rev.  Ferdinand  C.  Ewer,  Lawrence  Barrett, 
Lester  Wallack,  Joseph  Jefferson,  and  Will- 
iam Warren,  and  a  poem  was  read  by  Will- 
iam Winter. 

Booth,  with  his  wife  and  daughter,  sailed 
from  New  York  on  the  13th  of  June,  1880. 
After  a  few  months'  travel  on  the  Conti- 
nent he  opened  the  new  Princess  Theatre, 
London,  on  the  6th  of  November,  as  Hamlet. 
He  afterwards  played  at  this  house  Rich- 
elieu, Bertuccio,  Othello,  lago,  Petruchio, 
Shylock,  and  King  Lear.  At  the  Lyceum 
Theatre  the  next  season,  under  Henry  Irv- 


56 


ing,  he  played  lago  and  Othello,  alternating 
the  parts  with  that  gentleman.  And  during 
the  summer  of  1882  he  was  at  the  London 
Adelphi.  His  last  professional  visit  to  Eu- 
rope was  made  in  the  summer  of  1883,  when 
he  played  in  English  with  a  German-speak 
ing  company  in  the  capital  cities  of  Ger- 
many, often  prompting  the  persons  who 
supported  him,  although  quite  unfamiliar 
with  their  language.  These  engagements 
were,  in  an  artistic  point  of  view,  enormously 
successful. 

Between  1881  and  1886  he  played  during 
the  winter  seasons  throughout  the  United 
States  with  all  his  old  fire  and  skill.  It  was 
not  until  a  year  or  two  later  that  his  waning 
physical  powers  and  his  own  wishes  led  him 
to  retire.  That  he  remained,  perhaps,  too 
long  upon  the  stage  he  was  fully  aware,  but 
he  could  not  resist  the  appeals  of  his  old 
comrade,  Mr.  Barrett,  nor  his  own  inclina- 
tions to  help  his  fellow-players  when  they 
needed  his  personal  support. 

In  combination  with  ]Mr.  Barrett,  there- 


fore,  and  under  the  business  management  of 
that  gentleman,  he  began,  at  Buffalo,  New 
York,  in  1887,  a  series  of  brilliant  seasons, 
which  ended  only  with  Mr.  Barrett's  death 
in  1891.  They  played  together  in  Hamlet, 
Julius  Cmar,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  Othel- 
lo, and  i?/c7ie?ie?^,  Mr. Barrett  taking  the  parts 
of  Claudius,  Cassius,  Antonio,  Othello  and 
lago,  and  Du  Mauprat,  when  they  attracted 
the  largest  audiences,  at  an  increased  scale 
of  prices,  ever  seen,  for  so  many  consecutive 
nights,  in  the  history  of  the  theatre  in  the 
United  States.  In  1890  Mr.  Booth,  sup- 
ported by  Madame  Modjeska,  still  under 
Mr.  Barrett's  management,  but  not  in  con- 
nection with  him,  played  a  limited  engage- 
ment throughout  the  country  ;  and  in  1891 
the  two  stars  were  again  seen  in  conjunction 
at  the  Broadway  Theatre,  New  York,  until 
Mr.  Barrett's  sudden  death  in  March  brought 
the  season  to  a  close.  Booth's  last  appear- 
ance upon  any  stage  was  at  the  Brooklyn 
Academy  of  Music,  at  the  matinee  perform- 
ance on  Saturday,  April  4th,  of  that  year  ; 


58 


and  liis  last  public  utterance,  in  a  short 
speecli  made  after  the  fall  of  the  curtain  on 
that  occasion,  is  worth  quoting  in  full.  It 
is  taken  from  the  report  written  for  the 
Tribune  of  the  next  day  by  Mr.  William 
Winter.  "Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  scarcely 
know  what  to  say ;  and,  indeed,  I  can  only 
make  my  usual  speech— of  thanks  and  grat- 
itude. I  thank  you  for  this  kindness.  It 
will  never  be  forgotten.  I  hope  that  this  is 
not  the  last  time  I  shall  have  the  honor  of 
appearing  before  you.  When  I  come  again 
I  trust  that  I  shall  be  able  to  give  greater 
attention  than  I  have  ever  given  to  what- 
ever part  I  may  play.  I  hope  that  my  health 
and  strength  may  be  improved  so  that  I  can 
serve  you  better  ;  and  I  shall  always  try  to 
deserve  the  favor  you  have  shown." 

The  last  words  of  Hamlet,  however— the 
last  words  which  Mr.  Booth,  as  an  actor,  ever 
uttered  —  are  much  more  significant  and 
much  more  touching — "The  rest  is  silence!" 

Edwin  Booth  lived  in  quiet,  happy  retire- 
ment at  his  home  in  the  house  of  The  Play- 


ers,  watched  and  cheered  by  his  loving 
daughter  and  a  few  old  friends,  until,  at  last, 
early  on  the  morning  of  the  7th  of  June, 
Death  beckoned  him  awa}'-,  and  he  passed  to 
his  reward. 
The  rest  is  silence  ! 


THE   END. 


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